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Show 188 PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE ALUROIDEA. [Feb. 7, Cr. elegans is represented in the British Museum by skins and skulls ; and there is a skeleton in the Royal College of Surgeons. The fur is of one colour, save that the tail is ringed with black, the hair not annulated. The length of the head and body is about 45"*2, and that of the tail is 30"*5. The muzzle seems rather obtuse. The claws are long, but considerably ^curved. The tarsus and metatarsus are covered beneath with sparse short hairs, or are^more or less inclined to be bald, but are not so as in Galidictis. The skull is very like that of Galidictis ; but the muzzle and palate are narrower relatively, and the mandibular symphysis is much shorter. There is, again, no alisphenoid canal. The condyloid foramen is exposed. The palate is flat, and not concave posteriorly as in Galidictis. The zygomata are not quite so much arched outwards. The auditory opening is a more elongated oval. In other respects the skull is as in Galidictis. As to the dentition, it is quite like that of Galidictis, save that the canines are smaller, especially the lower ones, the external incisors less preponderating. -- is smaller relatively. -- may be quite small and placed within tbe hinder part of - - *. The preparation No. 2147 B in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons shows that there is a single pair of rather large anal glands ; and the anus does not seem to open into any cutaneous depression. The two other species described by Isid. G. St.-Hilaire differ considerably from G. elegans, as that author himself pointed out, and as has been more decidedly indicated by Dr. F. A. Jentink2. I have not had any opportunity of examining G. concolor ; but, on account of its declared resemblance to G. olivacea3 (which is represented by skins, skulls, and a skeleton in the British Museum), it must be separated generically from G. elegans if G. olivacea is to be so separated. Now two courses seem to me feasible: one is to institute a new genus for the species olivacea and concolor; and the other is to unite Galidia and Galidictis in a single genus. But the differences between the last-named genus and G. elegans seem to m e to be as great as those which separate Cyncelurus from Felis ; and as G. olivacea (and, as I infer, concolor) seems to m e to differ as much from G. elegans as does this last from Galidictis, the more reasonable course seems to m e to be to separate them, which I now accordingly propose to do under the generic name Hemigalidia. In external characters Hemigalidia differs from Galidia in the non-annulation of the tail, in the more pointed muzzle, aud especially in the less arched (more Herpestine and less Viverrine) form of its claws (cf fig. 14, j and K, p. 192). In the skull the bulla is rather more decidedly Herpestiform than in Galidia. The carotid foramen (for the entrance of the carotid artery) is more conspicuous ; the hind part of the palate is not so 1 As in the specimens in the Boy. Coll. of Surg, museum. 2 See ' Notes from the Leyden Museum,' vol. i. p. 131. 3 On some notes as to the habits of these forms, see Pollen's ' Faune de Madagascar' (1868), p. 23. |